Best of 2023
Hands That Bind (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)
The Original Motion Picture Soundtrack for Hands That Bind, by Jim O'Rourke
May 99
Tip! Black vinyl, with silkscreen and insert. In the spring of 1999, Charles Curtis, Alan Licht, and Dean Roberts brought an unconventional mix of drone, improvisation, and experimental rock on an eleven-stop tour of Europe. The concept was straightforward, yet novel: each night, they would improvise a single piece while sustained sine waves played for the duration of the concert. May 99, culled from three shorter pieces recorded for a radio program at Amsterdam’s VPRO near the end of the tour, …
In Là
Timed in celebration of his 80th birthday, the venerable imprint, Alga Marghen, releases “In Là”, a stunning LP comprising a brand-new work by the groundbreaking English composer Gavin Bryars
Baraka
** Special mirroring/olographic cover. Edition of 300 copies ** After his participation in a masterpiece such as Popol Vuh’s Hosianna Mantra, in the early 1980s Klaus Wiese produced a series of seminal works in the field of ambient-drone and healing music. The first of these, Baraka, was released on tape by Acquamarin in 1981, and already contained all the aspects of his future research into the mysticism of sound. Wiese shares the path with other German explorers such as Michael Peter Hamel, …
Song Of Soil
2024 Repress. Masahiko Togashi was a pivotal figure in the development of the Japanese free jazz scene in late 60s. Percussionist and composer, he lost the use of the legs in an accident which nevertheless didn’t not prevent him from continuing an astonishing career that includes long and established collaborations with figures of the likes of Steve Lacy, Charlie Haden, Mal Waldron and Paul Bley. This session, recorded in Paris at the Ramèse Studio Du Village in 1979, sees an explosive collabor…
Red Hair Girl At Lighthouse Beach
Tip! *2024 much needed repress* Making music is trying to start over again every time. It’s a matter of questioning and approaching. It’s never settling for the sound that fills the world around. It’s looking for a door in the sky. And maybe find it, open it, go beyond it. Rod Modell and Gigi Masin, this time together, are offering each other vibrations and insights. The former lives between two lakes, the latter between the Venetian lagoon and the sea. Everyone on their own shore, building elec…
Sidiroun Parapetasma
“Sidiroun Parapetasma” is MMMΔ’s 14th release to date. The band is leaving -temporarily- behind the slow hypnotic beat experimentation of Nomenklatura and releases a powerful, majestic album of four tracks, a “clin d'œil” at the bootlegging practices of copying music to analogue tape and discarded X-rays in the Soviet era.
The music is heavy, monolithic and massive, filled with rhythmic explosions, repetitive motifs, ethereal synths and harsh atmospheric vocals or hidden screams that harmonize…
Arthur Pétronio
Edition of 500. With fold-out poster and original sleeve design by Alain Geronnez. Arthur Petronio (1897-1983) was a French-Italian musician, poet and painter. Lived in Belgium and The Netherlands between 1910 and 1924 and since then in France. Young violin virtuoso studying with Belgian master violinist Eugène Ysaÿe. Played solo violin for Belgian King Leopold II, at the age of 9. Attracted to the avant-garde and visionary ideas of Gesamtkunstwerk. Develops and presents his “Verbophonie” in 191…
Half Dead Ganja Music
Platform 23 Records’ meandering, and sporadic journey continues, digging up archival treasures of known and unknown music sonics. The label’s close association with Paris’ based ‘ethno-industrialists’ Vox Populi! continues, here returning to their most heralded and possibly cohesive album, in Half Dead Ganga Music.
The beautifully apt title precedes their most intense trip, pushing the boundaries away from the percussive psychedelic of albums ‘Mystcitismes’ (1985) and Aither’ (1989) to create …
Canti E Vedute Del Giardino Magnetico
2023 Repress American composer and multi-instrumentalist Alvin Curran has remained one of the great emblems of experimental music for the last half-century. In 1966, along with Frederic Rzewski and Richard Teitelbaum, Curran co-founded Musica Elettronica Viva, a seminal gesture in collective free improvisation. In the early '70s, his solo work would become a crucial bridge between minimalist traditions on both sides of the Atlantic. Canti E Vedute Del Giardino Magnetico, Curran's solo debut, was…
Extensions
McCoy Tyner looked towards Africa on his stunning 1970 album Extensions, a far-reaching exploration of Black identity that marked the masterful pianist’s fifth recording for Blue Note Records. After leaving John Coltrane’s band Tyner had moved from Impulse to Blue Note and made his enduring post-bop classic The Real McCoy in 1967. In the following years Tyner steadily expanded his musical scope: writing for a 9-piece ensemble on Tender Moments, exploring the textures of a piano-vibes led quartet…
The Complete Obscure Records Collection
** Limited Collector Edition of 1.000 copies. Includes hand-numbered certificate, 10 LPs in faithful replicas of the original covers and polylined inner sleeves, a 80-page LP-sized book in English, all housed in a custom lavish linen box. ** We’re thrilled to announce the first ever box set gathering the entire ten album collection of Brian Eno’s Obscure Records, originally issued between 1975 and 1978. Containing the debut releases of Gavin Bryars, Michael Nyman, John Adams, David Toop, Max Eas…
Pharoah Box Edition
Deluxe 2CD boxset with 70-page booklet. Alongside a remastered version of Pharoah, his seminal record from 1977, are two previously unreleased live performances of his masterpiece, “Harvest Time.” Includes a 24-page booklet with rarely seen photographs and ephemera, as well as interviews with many of the participants and a conversation with Pharoah himself. With Pharoah Sanders’ blessing, we present the definitive, remastered version of Pharoah, his seminal record from 1977, in an embossed 2 L…
Shortwave Encounters
* 400 copies, White Vinyl * Shortwave Encounters is Walter Maioli’s research on extraterrestrial sounds and radio communications started in Amsterdam during the orbital passage of the Comet Halley in 1986. This record is an imaginary interaction between a sender and a receiver, an attempt to create a logged communication between earth and space, combining radio eavesdropping and field-recordings as well as acoustic and electronic instruments, spanning from shells to bat calls, and from the ney f…
Il Suono delle Api / La Vibrazione del Cosmo
An absolutely stunning effort from one of the great journeymen of Italian experimentalism, Walter Maioli's 'Il Suono delle Api / La Vibrazione del Cosmo', issued by Villa Lontana Records, is electroacoustic music at its absolute, vibrant best. Pressed in two extremely limited editions on black and transparent vinyl and laden with rich tonalities, deep drones, and hypnotic arpeggiations, it's a truly mind-melting, free-standing sonic world that encounters Maioli at the top of his game.
Barbara, The Gray Witch
Bomb! **Double LP on Mystic Gray vinyl, 180 gr. Deluxe edition with lenticular cover** "Both Prophets are pleased to announce the second record release from The False Prophets Recording Company "Barbara, The Gray Witch". Available for the first time since its original release in 1971. In this album, Barbara gives you a series of tests to determine if you were born a witch or warlock, and what you can expect to gain from witchcraft. She reveals for the 1st time the differences between the three…
By Myself
Huge Tip! This long out-of-print holy grail private press album, originally released by the late Abdul Wadud himself in 1977, is finally being reissued on vinyl. This reissue was originally sanctioned by Abdul himself. Unfortunately, he passed away on August 10, 2022. We thank his family, and particularly his son, Raheem DeVaughn, in assisting us see this masterpiece through to become available on vinyl to a new generation.
There really is no easily comparable album in existence. Abdul Wadud…
Di Domenico, Bordin, Marogna
** 200 copies. Includes four pictures by Matta Rosso printed on Favini Crush Mais paper ** Recorded on September 6, 2021 at Outside Inside Studio, Volpago del Montello. Giovanni Di Domenico: electric & acoustic piano, electronics, percussion. Riccardo Marogna: tenor saxophone, clarinet, live electronics, percussion. Matt Bordin: tape loops, synth, electronics, lap steel guitar, soprano sax, percussions. Mixed and mastered by Matt Bordin. Pictures by Marta Rosso.
Smiles
**200 copies. Double LP version of "Smiles" pressed on black vinyl. Includes 8-page booklet printed on yellow Fedrigoni Sirio paper** Recorded live on April 28, 2014 at Outside Inside Studio, Montebelluna. Alan Zignoto: bass. Dave Easlick: drums. Tom Greenwood: guitar, vocals. Jeffrey Alexander: synth, chalumeau. Michael Whittaker: saxophone, flute, trombone. Dave Siebert: violin, lap steel. Mixed and mastered by Matt Bordin. Photos by Lorenzo Ferraro.
Mediterranean Music-Water
**Edition of 350 copies, 16 page book. Previously unreleased! ** Less than a decade ago, the legacy of the Danish multi-disciplinary artist and composer, Henning Christiansen (1932 - 2008), had fallen into obscurity and remained almost entirely out of view. Outside of a small but dedicated following of sound-art fans and scholars, he ranked among the most obscure figures in experimantal music. Thankfully, over the years since, due to the devotion of a small number of labels, his work, in the for…